March 4, 2005
WITH ENOUGH SHOVELS (via Politicasl Theory)
Core Values (Chris Floyd, February 25, 2005, Moscow Times)
Day in and day out, patriotic American dissidents on both the left and the right keep shovelling through the bloody muck of the Bush Imperium. The filth is endless, Augean; Salon.com recently catalogued 34 ongoing major scandals, equalling or surpassing the depravity of Watergate. Yet still the patriots bend to the task, tossing up steaming piles of ugly truth before the public.And with every loud splattering of fresh Bushflop, there's a flurry of hope that this time, the dirt will stick; this time, the stench of corruption will be so overwhelming that the nation's long-somnolent conscience will be aroused. Yet each time, the rancid slurry just disappears down the drain: The Bushists tell their butt-covering lies, the "watchdogs" of the media wag their tails and all is well again in the land that Gore Vidal so aptly dubbed the United States of Amnesia. No scandal, no matter how outrageous, ever gains any traction.
But there is a simple reason why patriots on both the right and the left are stymied: because the center is rotten to its well-wadded, self-righteous, wilfully ignorant core. We speak here of the nation's "great and good," pillars of the community and stalwarts of the established order, the "captains, merchant bankers, eminent men of letters, the generous patrons of art, the statesmen and the rulers, distinguished civil servants, chairmen of many committees, industrial lords and petty contractors," in T.S. Eliot's words -- to which we might add, as a modern gloss, the highly credentialed academics, extremely well-remunerated corporate journalists, politically wired churchmen and the innumerable massagers of public opinion and commercial desire.
It is this center -- which prides itself on being sensible, moderate, decent and respectable -- that has become morally corrupted beyond measure, perhaps beyond remedy. Here, where there should be thunderous denunciations of the Bush regime's rape of American honor -- a litany of sins that includes aggressive war, the decimation of cities, vile acts of torture, kidnappings, "renditions," imprisonment without charges, indefinite detention, assassinations, war profiteering and the exaltation of presidential power above the reach of law -- there has been only silent acquiescence, or the rare, decorous, timorous murmur, or, increasingly, enthusiastic support.
At least this guy recognizes that he and his ilk are just the pooper-scoopers following the march of liberty. Posted by Orrin Judd at March 4, 2005 6:36 PM
Gee, by this guy's standards, we're all as bad as Hitler. (But not Stalin - can't go there).
Posted by: jim hamlen at March 4, 2005 7:21 PMthis is the kind of juvenille bunk that a precosious 13 year old would scribble. it really is applaing that such low grade writing gets published. if you are going to print bunk, at least make it entertaining bunk. this sounds like it was squeezed out the back end of an over-fed dog.
Posted by: cjm at March 4, 2005 7:55 PMI thought the list of scandals was at The Nation. At any rate it was lame. Aside from no wmd and abu grahib I can not remember what they were.
Posted by: Robert Schwartz at March 4, 2005 8:34 PMAnd those aren't scandals; merely reflections of structural problems independent of party affiliation.
Posted by: ratbert at March 4, 2005 8:41 PMThere goes that term "morals" again.
I was listening to Medved interview Robert Jenkins, journo prof at Austin(?) and lefty. He threw out that term a lot.
I wasn't aware the Left had morals.
Posted by: Sandy P at March 4, 2005 8:44 PM"Chris Floyd" indeed. The style has Howard Dean's larynx-prints all over it.
Posted by: Axel Kassel at March 4, 2005 9:08 PMThe death rattle of capitalism? Imperialism is the last stage, right?
Posted by: Tom C., Stamford, Ct. at March 4, 2005 9:11 PMLet me make it clear that I do not regard either the missing WMD or Abu Grahib as a scandal.
As for the WMD, one of two things is true, either they are being hidden somewhere or Saddam was playing the worst busted flush in history. Maybe his lieutenants gamed him, but if they didn't and he knew the wmd were gone it was a bad bet.
As for Abu Grahib, its trivia. The sort of stuff that goes on at fraternity houses and parties that Andrew Sullivan attends all the time. Since then I have found citations to almost identical stuff being staged at a fancy opera in Berlin. I thought and still think that it was humorous.
The other night I heard Juan Williams, Fox News' house token, ranting about the terrible tourtures being inflicted of Guantanamo. They had to listen to loud music, with strobe lights, while women rubbed up against them. Last time that happened to me I had to pay $25 to get into the disco.
Posted by: Robert Schwartz at March 4, 2005 10:39 PMSpeaking of Bushflop (and to paraphrase Phil Hartman's classic SNL Sinatra impersonation), GWB has chunks of guys like this in his stool.
Posted by: Pat H at March 4, 2005 10:48 PMRobert Schwartz, my hero. Don't forget that it was Mary Mapes who supplied the photo phones and the contact to 60 Minutes. She had a contact at Abu Gharib and setup the photo op. The MSM went nuts, but it's not torture when only your pride is hurt. As for strobe lights and loud music, it would feel like torture only to those who don't know what real torture is like. Take a look at pictures of Saddam's victims. The difference isn't hard to see.
Posted by: erp at March 4, 2005 11:05 PMBehold the mentality of the gulag guard and secret policeman in all of it's squalor. Everyone except the committed patriots are subhuman filth. The people are sheep and we must! make! them! see!
Or else.
Posted by: BC Monkey at March 4, 2005 11:15 PMIf nothing else, Mr. Floyd does appear to have the style and cadance to write some really teriffic pro wrestling interview scripts for the WWE TV broadcasts in the future.
Posted by: John at March 4, 2005 11:28 PMWhat kind of person in Moscow will read this as an affirmation of their suspicions about the US and GW Bush? Former KGB thugs like Putin? Wasn't he involved in the plot to assassinate the Pope? It seems still to be his style (as we saw in the Ukraine).
But then again, ever time I think people will actually be able to make a comparison between right and wrong, they choose wrong.
Posted by: Randall Voth at March 5, 2005 2:55 AMAnd here we see the culture-traitor and the folk-enemy showing his true colors. It is the mainstreasm, majoritarian America that is rotten to its core, he says, and presumamably it it we who ought to be destroyed.
What do you bet this writer believes that we should just die, and our substance be given to all the peoples we ahve wronged?
Posted by: Lou Gots at March 5, 2005 6:22 AMThis piece just made me giggle. . . .
Posted by: Twn at March 5, 2005 9:37 AMFloyd, an America-hating ex-pat, quoting two other America-hating ex-pats, Vidal and TS Eliot. Why should we care? Let him eat borscht.
Posted by: Bart at March 5, 2005 10:51 AMi suspect hugo chavez is doing a little moonlighting as a journalist using "floyd" as a pseudonym. i say this based on the colorful and entertaining writing styles of other tyrants -- how come they always get the best lines ?
Posted by: cjm at March 5, 2005 11:08 AM"if you are going to print bunk, at least make it entertaining bunk..."
Oh, I disagree, cjm; I found this very entertaining!
RE: "Salon.com recently catalogued 34 ongoing major scandals, equalling or surpassing the depravity of Watergate."
Salon or The Nation, whatever... I'm fairly well informed, and I can't think of any ongoing scandals, major or otherwise. I refer to real scandals, not imaginary NYT scandals. Any help here?